Sibling-mediated social interaction intervention

Sibling-mediated social interaction intervention for young children with autism.

Topics in Early Childhood Special Education

| June 22, 2006 | Tsao, Ling-Ling; Odom, Samuel L.

Several researchers have advocated peer-mediated social interventions as an effective approach for children with autism (Harrower & Dunlap, 2001; McConnell, 2002). In this type of intervention, typically developing peers have been regarded as the most powerful agents of behavioral change in social settings (Utley, Mortweet, & Greenwood, 1997), so classroom teachers often have selected socially competent classmates as social interveners for children with disabilities. These nondisabled peers are taught simple behavioral strategies that elicit or support the interactions of children with disabilities, such as asking a child to play, sharing a toy, or suggesting play activities (Brown, Odom, & Conroy, 2001; English, Goldstein, Shafer, & Kaczmarek, 1997; Kohler & Strain, 1999; Odom & Strain, 1986). After the training sessions, researchers have one or more trained peers act as the social interaction agents for the study participants with disabilities. These peers model, reinforce, and/or prompt appropriate social behaviors in classroom settings (Goldstein, Kaczmarek, Pennington, & Shafer, 1992; Strain & Odom, 1986). Peer-mediated interventions have produced positive effects for children with disabilities in classroom settings (Odom et al., 2003). It may be possible to extend this intervention approach to the home by placing siblings in the roles filled by peers in classroom-based peer-mediated interventions.

Several researchers have examined the feasibility of using typically developing siblings to promote the skills, development, and participation of children with autism, with siblings most often filling a "teacher" role. Cash and Evans (1975) first investigated the possibility of using young children as behavior modifiers for their young siblings with disabilities. The researchers taught three sisters how to teach their younger siblings with disabilities to complete an experimental task (i.e., dropping chips into holes). Building on this research, Colletti and Harris (1977) trained an older sister to modify the behaviors of her younger sibling with autism through delivering contingent reinforcement for increased bead stringing. The results of these fairly basic research studies indicated that siblings might be effective in helping children with autism learn functional skills in natural settings.

the study addressed the following research questions:

1. Would the sibling-mediated social intervention change the typically developing children's social behaviors when playing with their siblings with ASD?

2. Would the sibling-mediated social intervention produce increases in the social interactions of the children with ASD?

3. Would the sibling-mediated intervention have a collateral effect on joint attention (a behavior category of child orientation) between children with ASD and their siblings?

4. If the intervention produced an increase in overall interactions, would the increased interactions generalize to a setting outside of the home?

5. Were the outcomes of the intervention socially valid?

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